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Monday, 11 November 2013

Terrorism, drug
trafficking and situation in Afghanistan and Syria were among the issues that
figured prominently during a trilateral meeting among the foreign ministers of
RIC (Russia, India and China) countries here this evening.

External Affairs
Minister Salman Khurshid, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Chinese
Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the hour-long meeting at which they also
considered ways and means to promote economic cooperation among the three
countries. Earlier in the day, Khurshid held bilateral talks with both his
Russian and Chinese counterparts, who are here for the ASEM (Asia-Europe
Meeting) ministerial conference beginning tomorrow. The RIC foreign ministers’
meeting assumes significance in the backdrop of the fact that Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh had visited both Russia and China last month.

The three foreign
ministers also discussed the issues related to the upcoming 9th WTO Ministerial
Conference to be held in Bali.

The three
countries have been holding meetings at the foreign ministers’ level since
1996.

It is understood
that Lavrov proposed coordinated action by the three countries at international
organisations, including the UN. He also floated an initiative to convene a
special ASEM conference on intercultural and interfaith cooperation in St
Petersburg next July.“Manmohan Singh has at least listened our voice.’’

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20131111/nation.htm#10

Services chiefs want assets merged for 3 new
commands

Ajay Banerjee/TNS

New Delhi,
November 10

An ambitious
proposal that aims to alter India’s war fighting strategies, the Chief of Staff
Committee (CoSC), a body comprising the Chiefs of the Army, Navy and the IAF,
has suggested that each of the three Services be given charge of a specific
command to lead.

The CoSC has
submitted a suggestion on three new commands, each one headed by the Army, Navy
and the IAF, sources said. The Ministry of Defence will now initiate an
in-house discussion on this. Before getting okayed, the suggestion will need a
calibration at the level of the National Security Council and also the Cabinet
Committee on Security headed by the Prime Minister. This will entail a new
working environment, new standard operating procedures and amalgamation of all
assets and manpower.

In the past, the
MoD opted for tri-services or staff formations. These have Commanders appointed
by rotation from each of the three Services. The CoSC wants that the new
upcoming Commands be entrusted with one service making it the overall in charge
with officers and staff coming in from all three Services.

The CoSC is presently
headed by IAF Chief, Air Chief Marshall NAK Browne, and the baton will pass to
Gen Bikram Singh on January 1 next year. The focus is on for having three new
commands-the aerospace command, the cyber command and the special operations
command. As per the CoSC suggestions, the IAF should get the aerospace command,
the Navy should be in charge of the cyber command and the Army will be
responsible for the Special Forces operations command, sources said. The logic
for each has been assessed.

The need to have
one Service in-charge of one command stems from the ‘not-so-smooth’ experience
of India’s only operational theatre command at Andaman and Nicobar Islands
which has a Lt-General, Vice-Admiral or Air Marshal heading it by rotation.
This model had not been successful according to the feedback and assessment of
the CoSC, hence the need to have one Service responsible for the command and
draw the mandated resources from the other two.

The special
operations command has been suggested by the 14-member Naresh Chandra taskforce
on National Security. In its report to the Prime Minister last year, it had
favoured setting up of an SOC. The report was of the opinion that the Indian
Special Forces are not being utilised to their full potential and they needed
to be brought together under the SOC, which would report directly to the Chiefs
of Staff Committee.

The Indian Army
has some 10,000 special forces trained and kept ready for any ‘commando style
operation’. The Special Forces with the IAF, called the Garuds, and under the
Navy, called the Marcos, are too small in number to be sustainable on their
own.

Also, the Army
provides the National Security Guards with some its best trained men. This will
be fitted within the newly increased capacities by way of specialised planes
like the just-inducted C-130-J and the recently-inducted heavy lifter, the
C-17. Both can land on mud-strips. The C-130-J demonstrated it at a recent
exercise called Livewire in the desert. The proposal is to base the aerospace
command with the IAF that will draw forces from the Army and Navy besides
getting some component of the DRDO. In the future, the specialised ‘X-band’
radars, which can spot a six-inch object some 4,600 km away and can provide
live imagery, can be aid to this command.

Altering war
fighting strategies

The focus is on for having three new
commands-the aerospace command, the cyber command and the special operations
command

As per the CoSC suggestions, the IAF should
get the aerospace command, the Navy should be in charge of the cyber command
and the Army will be responsible for the Special Forces operations command

The CoSC is presently headed by IAF Chief,
Air Chief Marshall NAK Browne, and the baton will pass to Gen Bikram Singh on
January 1 next year

Indian Navy on
Tuesday began a 7-day naval exercise with US navy off Visakhapatnam

On Tuesday, in an
almost too careful gesture of even-handedness, the Indian Navy began a
seven-day joint naval exercise with the US navy off Visakhapatnam, even as the
Indian Army kicked off 10 days of joint training with People’s Liberation Army
(PLA) of China near Chengdu. The India-US exercise, codenamed Malabar, is the
15th in a series that began in 1992 and has become an annual fixture in the
Indo-Pacific. The Sino-Indian exercise, codenamed Hand-in-Hand, is the 3rd in
an engagement that began in 2007 but then endured a five-year hiatus.

Interestingly, the
Ministry of Defence (MoD) has taken pains to reduce the profile of the Indo-US
Exercise Malabar. This is evident from the number and type of warships
participating. Instead of the customary aircraft carrier battle group, the US
has fielded a solitary Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer, USS
McCampbell, and a few P3C aircraft. India is fielding just two warships, INS
Shivalik and Ranvijay, and some TU-142M maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

This is a marked
reduction from last year, when a US carrier battle group took part in Malabar
2012, with the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson escorted by three other
vessels. The Indian participation included five major surface warships.

Exercise Malabar
2007, the highest profile ever, saw Australian, Japanese, Singaporean and
American flotillas train with the Indian Navy off the Andaman & Nicobar
Islands. China shot off a written questionnaire, while India’s Left Front
parties, indignant at what they considered an anti-China gesture, staged
political demonstrations along the east coast against the warships exercising
800 km away. That year, 13 major US warships had participated, including two
aircraft carriers — USS Nimitz and USS Kitty Hawk.

That Defence
Minister A K Antony has taken note of Beijing’s feelings was made clear in
April, when India clumsily withdrew from a trilateral exercise planned with the
US and Japanese navies off the coast of Guam. When American and Japanese
officials arrived in Delhi for a coordinating conference, they were taken aback
to be told that New Delhi would not participate.

New Delhi and
Washington both cite budgetary cutbacks to explain the reduced profile of joint
exercises. The declining US defence budget, compounded by the effects of
sequestration (mandatory spending cuts), has in fact played a role, for example
in the Pentagon’s cancellation of the Red Flag Exercise in Arizona earlier this
year. But there is also growing conviction in Washington that New Delhi is
toning down the US relationship, apparently to placate China.

Compounded these
feelings is the MoD’s apparent inconsideration. Earlier this summer, a US
two-star general arrived in Delhi for a scheduled meeting with a MoD official.
When he arrived at South Block, he was told that his interlocutor had gone to
Italy in connection with the AgustaWestland AW-101 VVIP helicopter
investigation.

Notwithstanding
this, the MoD exudes optimism about US-India defence ties. “Our navies are
natural partners, and we look forward to continuing to strengthen the bonds and
personnel relations between our navies,” observed the MoD on Tuesday.

Yet, US defence
expert and Pentagon watcher Manohar Thaygaraj said there was cause for worry.
“The number and scope of joint exercises, which is usually cited as one of the
strengths of the US India defence relationship, has been steadily declining,
partly for budgetary reasons, partly for political ones,” he said.

Meanwhile, 160
Indian soldiers, who travelled to Chengdu, China, started “counter-terrorism
training” on Tuesday with the PLA. The first exercise of this series,
Hand-in-Hand, was held in Kunming in 2007, followed by a second in Belgaum the
next year. In 2010, New Delhi suspended defence exchanges after China denied a
visa to India’s top military commander in J&K. In July, during Antony’s
visit to Beijing, it was decided to resume the series. Since November 2003,
India has also carried out joint naval exercises with China, although these are
far less sophisticated and operationally oriented than the Malabar series with
the US, the Konkan series with the UK and the Varuna series with France.

SLAMABAD: The
Pakistan army has condemned a prominent Islamic political party leader who
called the Pakistani Taliban leader killed by a US drone strike a martyr.

Syed Munawar
Hasan, the head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, told a Pakistani TV station
earlier this month that he thought slain Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud was a
martyr. He later implied that Pakistani soldiers killed while fighting Islamic
militants are not martyrs because they are allied with the US

The army condemned
Hasan's comments as "irresponsible and misleading" in a statement
Sunday and demanded that he apologize.

The Pakistani
Taliban have killed thousands of civilians and security forces in their quest
to overthrow the country's democratic government and impose a harsh version of
Islamic law.

“We are requesting all District
Administrations to organise coaching classes for those aspiring to enrol in the
Army under the various trades to help them perform better in the written
selection test,” Brigadier S.B. Sajjan, Deputy Director General Recruiting
(States), Headquarters Recruiting Zone, Chennai, said here on Saturday.

Addressing
presspersons during the on-going eight-day recruitment rally of the Army at the
Nehru Stadium, he said this would enable candidates who have passed Standard X
or Plus-Two prepare well for the selection.

“For most of the trades, the
eligibility is either a pass in Standard X or Plus-Two. Though the question
paper for the written test is of normal standard, some boys are not able to
clear it, even though they would have cleared the preliminary fitness and
medical tests. Some District Administrations are offering coaching on a small
level. It is possible for us to develop a uniform structure for coaching if the
District Administrations are willing to administer it to deserving candidates
through formal classes,” the Brigadier said.

The rally was being organised
under the aegis of the Army Recruiting Office, Coimbatore, to recruit eligible
men to serve in the trades of DSC, Soldier General Duty, Soldier Technical
including Soldier Technical Aviation, Soldier Technical Dresser and Soldier
Nursing Assistant, Soldier Tradesmen, and Soldier Clerk / Store Keeper
Technical.

Candidates from 11 districts
such as Coimbatore, Theni, Dharmapuri, the Nilgiris, Krishnagiri, Madurai,
Namakkal, Erode, Dindigul, Tirupur and Salem, are participating in the rally.

Touts

Candidates should not fall for
false promises of touts who promise a job, the DDG said. He urged candidates
and parents to complain to the recruitment officials if they came in contact
with such persons.

The rally that began on
November 6 has so far seen 8,000 walk-ins and the Army expects at least 20,000
to attend when it ends on November 14.

“Increasing awareness about
the opportunities in the Army is the only way to create interest about the
Force. The Army is actively undertaking publicity campaigns in collaboration
with the District Administrations to conduct awareness / motivational
programmes in schools,” he said.